


Regret

by divinecomedienne



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, Domestic Violence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Academy Fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinecomedienne/pseuds/divinecomedienne
Summary: Thirteen-year-old Fitz has a late-night visitor.





	Regret

His mother had forbidden him from answering the door after 9pm, so when the doorbell rang at 11.07, Fitz didn’t immediately rise from the kitchen table. Another ring: longer this time and somehow more insistent, although he knew that logically a doorbell couldn’t really be insistent—could it? His heartbeat quickened slightly. Just yesterday, he’d overheard his mum and Mrs-Adie-Next-Door discussing a spate of burglaries that had taken place across the estate in the last few weeks. He wondered if he should call the police, or at least Mr Barr from number 23, who ran a boxing gym and had a Rottweiler. He stretched his hand hesitantly towards the phone, but then withdrew it and stood up.

‘Don’t be a nugget, Fitz,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Why would a burglar ring the doorbell?’

Curiosity got the better of him—that and the algebra he’d been working on had begun to swim before his eyes. He got up, aiming to creep into the dark living room and take a peek through the blinds without being seen.

But as he crossed the narrow hall, a voice—deep and rough—called out: ‘Leopold? Are you there? It’s me: your dad.’

Blood whooshed in Fitz’s ears and his mouth went dry. He hadn’t heard that voice in almost three years—not since that night at the old house in Partick. He’d clung trembling to the bannisters in his Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas, listening to the screaming, the smash of crockery; wondering if he should run downstairs and try to defend his mum, but fearful that it would only make his father’s anger worse. A final, deafening crash and then the front door slammed. He found his mother crouching on the kitchen floor next to the overturned table, clutching the phone. There was a cut on her forehead, a thin stream of blood trickling into her left eyebrow. ‘It’s OK, Leo,’ she told him in a small, shaky voice. ‘I’ve called the police. He’s not coming back.’

‘I know you’re there, son. I saw you through the back window as I came up the road.’ The voice was calmer than Fitz remembered it ever being and without a trace of a slur.

As if reading his thoughts, his father continued: ‘I’ve given up the booze now, Leopold. I’ve changed. Please, open up. I just want to talk to you.’

Fitz approached the door cautiously and put on the chain; then he opened it a crack. Alistair Fitz was much thinner than he had been three years ago. His face looked gaunt and eerie in the dim orange light from the street lamp behind him, even eerier when he cracked a smile, a sight Fitz wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before.

 ‘Go away, right now. You’re not supposed to be here,’ Fitz said with as much authority as he could muster, hoping fervently that his recently broken voice didn’t squeak or wobble.

 ‘I know, but I really wanted to see you, Leopold. I’ve come now, when your mum’s at work, because I knew she wouldn’t talk to me, but I’m hoping you will. I’m hoping you can convince her to give me another chance,’ Alistair pleaded, taking a step towards his son. Fitz recoiled.

‘She would never do that. Just go away and leave us alone. Please. I’ve got an exam tomorrow.’ Fitz tried to close the door, but it wouldn’t budge: Alistair was leaning against it and, thinner though he was, he was still a powerful man.

‘An exam, eh? What are you studying these days?’

It was the first time Fitz could remember his father asking him a question that wasn’t recriminatory and he was so surprised that he answered without thinking: ‘BEng in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering at Edinburgh.’

‘Oh, aye? And you’re what age now, fourteen?’ Alistair was smiling that eerie smile again.

‘I’m thirteen,’ Fitz muttered automatically.

‘Only thirteen and already getting your engineering degree!’ Alistair chuckled indulgently. ‘You always were good at fixing things, especially electronics, even when you were just a wee lad. You got that from me, you know.’

Fitz stared at his father in amazement. First a question and now praise! This was unprecedented. For a moment, he scrutinised Alistair’s face in the dim light, trying to read it as he would a chart or a page of calculations, desperately searching for proof that this radical change of personality was, miraculously, genuine. Then it all came back: the hand-shaped bruises on his mother’s forearms, the clouts around the side of the head that made his ears ring, the constant shouting: ‘You’re stupid,’ ‘You’re worthless,’ ‘You’re a waste of fucking oxygen.’

‘I got nothing from you! And if you don’t leave right now, or if you ever come near me or Mum ever again, I’ll call the police and they’ll lock you up like you deserve. I mean it!’ The words exploded out of Fitz with a violence he didn’t know he was capable of. It seemed that Alistair didn’t know it either; he blinked in sheer puzzlement for a few seconds and then turned and silently walked away.

 

* * *

  

‘That was the last time I ever saw him,’ Fitz concluded, ‘and I’m about 99.9% sure that it’s for the best.’ He paused for a moment and then continued: ‘But there’s always been that .1% of me that wonders if I did the right thing. Maybe he really had changed. There’s at least a little bit of good in everyone, right? Maybe by telling him to go away that night, I lost my chance to have a decent father in my life. And, worse than that, maybe I deprived my mum of her chance to have a decent husband.’

Fitz was horrified to realise that tears were welling in his eyes. He swiped at them furiously with the back of his hand. What was he thinking? He’d been away from home less than a month and he’d just revealed this still-tender psychological wound, a guilty secret he’d never told anyone before, to some English girl he hardly knew, just because she had a pretty face and kind eyes. And now here he was crying like a bloody footballer. He’d be lucky if she ever spoke to him again!

But when he risked a glance towards the girl—Jemma was her name—he was astonished to see that there were tears in her eyes too. She reached over and put a hand, soft and very cold, on his. ‘I think you did the right thing,’ she said in her gentle Yorkshire accent. ‘You trusted your instincts and my instinct tells me that you have good instincts. Anyway, there’s no point in regret, is there? We can’t change the past; well, at least not until someone discovers wormholes or tachyons or something!’ She smiled a radiant smile as warm as her skin was cold, so warm it seemed to Fitz it was evaporating the last traces of tears from his cheeks.

‘Come on, are you going to Professor Vaughan’s class now?’ Jemma asked, standing up and holding out her hand. 

‘Yeah, unfortunately.’ Fitz allowed her to pull him to his feet. ‘But, you know, it’s interesting what you said about tachyons because did you see that article in _The International Journal of Theoretical Physics_  last month…?’

And he proceeded to tell her about it as they set off down the corridor together, all thoughts of his father banished, at least temporarily, from his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> To me, regret implies something someone wishes they themselves had or hadn't done, so I gave Fitz a personal regret related to his father for AIDA to 'fix' in the Framework.


End file.
